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What you must accept is that your life is not going to be the same while you are writing.

Chinua Achebe

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Chinua Achebe
Age: 82 †
Born: 1930
Born: November 16
Died: 2013
Died: March 22
Essayist
Literary Critic
Novelist
Philosopher
Poet
Short Story Writer
University Teacher
Writer
Albert Chinualumogu Achebe
Accept
Accepting
Must
Writing
Going
Life

More quotes by Chinua Achebe

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The Novelist As Teacher”: “I would be quite satisfied if my novels (especially the ones I set in the past) did no more than teach my readers that their past – with all its imperfections – was not one long night of savagery from which the first Europeans acting on God’s behalf delivered them.
Chinua Achebe
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They have not always elected the best leaders, particularly after a long period in which they have not used this facility of free election. You tend to lose the habit.
Chinua Achebe
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People go to Africa and confirm what they already have in their heads and so they fail to see what is there in front of them.
Chinua Achebe
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Actually, I identify with all my characters, good and bad. I have to do that in order to make them genuine. I have to understand them even if I don't approve of them. Not completely - it's impossible complete identification is, in fact, not desirable.
Chinua Achebe
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We cannot trample upon the humanity of others without devaluing our own. The Igbo, always practical, put it concretely in their proverb Onye ji onye n'ani ji onwe ya: 'He who will hold another down in the mud must stay in the mud to keep him down.'
Chinua Achebe
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[Would] a sensible man spit out the juicy morsel that good fortune put in his mouth?
Chinua Achebe
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An angry man is always a stupid man.
Chinua Achebe
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When the moon is shining the cripple becomes hungry for a walk
Chinua Achebe
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The people you see in Nigeria today have always lived as neighbors in the same space for as long as we can remember. So it's a matter of settling down, lowering the rhetoric, the level of hostility in the rhetoric is too high.
Chinua Achebe
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A man to whom you do a favor will not understand if you say nothing, make no noise, just walk away. You may cause more trouble by refusing a bribe than by accepting it.
Chinua Achebe
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Living fire begets cold, impotent ash.
Chinua Achebe
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Wisdom is like a goatskin bag every man carries his own.
Chinua Achebe
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When a coward sees a man he can beat he becomes hungry for a fight.
Chinua Achebe
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Become familiar with your home, but know also about your neighbors. The young man who never went anywhere thinks his mother is the greatest cook.
Chinua Achebe
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The world is large,” said Okonkwo. “I have even heard that in some tribes a man’s children belong to his wife and her family.” “That cannot be,” said Machi. “You might as well say that the woman lies on top of the man when they are making the babies.
Chinua Achebe
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If you have leaders who are prepared to incite group against group it is very easy to manufacture reasons and excuses.
Chinua Achebe
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There is that great proverb — that until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.
Chinua Achebe
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Most writers who are beginners, if they are honest with themselves, will admit that they are praying for a readership as they begin to write. But it should be the quality of the craft, not the audience, that should be the greatest motivating factor.
Chinua Achebe
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The damage done in one year can sometimes take ten or twenty years to repair.
Chinua Achebe
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I prefer to go on trying all kinds of things, not to be told, This is the way it is done.
Chinua Achebe